Job Details

Vice President of Social Experience

Department: Social Media Management

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Open to Remote

Reporting To: President + Chief Growth Officer

Compensation: $165,000 - $174,999 / year

Description

At The Social Lights, we're a band of creative and energetic problem solvers who love nothing more than to help brands and individuals powerfully connect to their consumer by utilizing the power of social media. In other words, We help brands Decode Culture to Activate Fandoms on social media.

The VP of Social Experience is a creatively-driven senior leadership role that oversees the Content and Care + Engagement work and teams. The VP of Social Experience will play a pivotal role in shaping and executing the way our clients' brands show up within social media from brand-owned content to UGC to activations and even social comments as content. The VP of Social Experience will lead a team that builds the content calendars, manages social communities, ideates creative concepts and executes social media content deliverables. The focus will be on fueling social brand influence, enhancing engagement and creating work that gives our clients a competitive advantage.

Key Responsibilities

The Vice President of Social Experience will operate as a member of the senior leadership team and oversee 2 core areas of the business:

1. Care + Engagement: Our social discipline that moderates and engages with owned social channels, fosters positive interactions, uncovers unique community-first insights and builds brand loyalty and advocacy through conversation, comments, content, surprise + delight, and UGC.
2. Content: Our content team is a combination of ideators and makers responsible for planning, creation, and production of high-quality, engaging content across various formats and channels, including but not limited to single posts, serialized content, quick turn content and social campaigns.

Specific responsibilities include:

Creative Excellence

• Define and uphold the creative standard for our social-first work, ensuring it is culturally relevant, platform native and insight-driven
• Enhance our social-first creative POV and strengthen our creative differentiation
• Stand up new creative products and offerings in a differentiated way that drives growth and creates a competitive advantage for the agency
• Establish clear creative benchmarks that raise the bar across content and community
• Actively shapes our approach to human-first social expression, supported by technology (including AI)
• Champion bold thinking and calculated risk-taking that positions our clients as culture leaders, not just content publishers
• Oversee creative reviews and editorial standards to ensure consistency and quality across all deliverables
• Develop repeatable creative frameworks that enable excellence across brands and teams

Discipline Oversight

• Provide the strategic vision for Content and Care + Engagement, including defining the discipline point-of-view, capabilities and deliverables, productization, innovation, team structure and skills training
• Serve as a strategic advisor to our senior clients and prospects, providing insights and recommendations to support their key initiatives and objectives
• Ensure our teams are operating with excellence by defining the expectation for our work and the way we get there; supporting our team in meeting and exceeding our client expectations and adhering to strategic objectives and industry best practices
  • Help our teams and clients define and prioritize the right problems to solve, providing counsel and mentorship on where to focus
• Foster a culture of high-performance, creativity and innovation in Content and Care + Engagement teams and across the agency
  • Includes overseeing hiring, training, mentoring, and performance management of the teams
• Serve as a thought leader in the social media space, contributing a POV to agency thought leadership on creativity, market trends, technological advancements and innovations impacting our business
  • Develop strong external POVs (blogs, articles, speaking engagements), case studies and oversee award entries to help showcase the value of our work in using creative social problem-solving to achieve meaningful results for our clients
• Innovate and pilot solutions that will keep us ahead of our clients
• Own our social tech stack in partnership with the VP of Strategy and VP of Client Success
• Build and maintain relationships with social platform representatives to stay informed about emerging trends, test new products, and advise clients on pilot initiatives

Care + Engagement

• Define and uphold standards for community engagement, brand voice, responsiveness and platform-native communication across client accounts
• Establish clear expectations and quality benchmarks for SMMs and Social Media Leads to empower them to make on-brand real-time decisions
• Coach and develop SMMs to act as brand stewards and marketing partners to our clients
• Oversee the integrity of content calendars ensuring they are insight driven, culturally relevant, strategically aligned and proactively planned
• Identify skills gaps and proactively develop training, process, playbooks and upskilling initiatives
• Champion a positive mindset across the discipline

Senior Leadership Team

• Participate as an engaged member of the senior leadership team and cross-disciplinary collaboration with the CEO, President, COO, VPs, and Group Director team
• Partner with the President, COO and VP of Strategy and VP of Client Success to build and maintain sr. level client relationships and provide social thought leadership to our clients
• Position the company as a thought leader in its industry by creating and promoting insightful, thought-provoking content that addresses key trends, challenges, and opportunities
• Partner with the President, VP of Client Success and VP of Strategy to pitch new business by successfully building senior client relationships that open new doors for the agency, seeking opportunities for organic growth in our client portfolio and contributing in a lead role on new business pitches
• Act as a steward of company finances and resources, helping to shape and inform annual budget, company initiatives, financial targets and key decisions made during the annual planning process, quarterly forecasts, monthly financial reviews, and day-to-day oversight of department resources (COGS) and overhead expenses
• Spearhead initiatives with cross-functional leaders, including marketing, strategy, account management, and content teams, to ensure cohesive alignment and seamless integration of social media endeavors
• Facilitate discipline integration and collaboration, ensuring our process supports our teams and our work
• Collaborate with SLT on key company events and communications including attending an annual SLT retreat, TSL LightHaus, designing and leading department offsites, providing department updates and participating in quarterly re-forecasting exercises.
• Actively participate in talent recruitment, hiring, and onboarding strategy for the department and all levels/roles (entry / senior / director / associate); participate in the interview process for VP roles.
• Manage a team of group / director / associates; build and promote career development paths for direct reports and within the Content and Care + Engagement teams
• Actively participate in industry events, conferences, and forums to share expertise, build relationships, and stay informed on emerging trends and best practices

Travel Expectations

The VP of Social Experience will maintain a regular presence in Minneapolis (MPLS). Candidates must be able to meet in-person expectations once a month or more depending on business needs including company events, team facetime, client engagements, and new business opportunities. We'll provide as much advance notice as possible, though some trips will be timesensitive based on business needs.

Reporting Structure

• Reports to the President + Chief Growth Officer
• 3-5 Direct Reports

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• 20+ years of progressive agency, marketing and social media experience.
• Exceptional communication skills - verbal, written, and presentation
  • Fluent in both Keynote and PPT presentation building
• Demonstrated knowledge and understanding of social media skills and technology (key tools of the trade)
• Enthusiastic about social media marketing, AI and the future of marketing as a whole
• Ability to operate and excel in a highly agile, fast-paced culture
• Well-organized, strong time management and prioritization skills
• Prior experience in a leadership role managing multiple teams/disciplines, collaborating with peers, presenting to and leading clients, managing external partnerships, participating in new business development
• Relationship management
• Demonstrated leadership integrity

*This job description is not designed to cover or encompass a comprehensive listing of required activities, duties, or responsibilities. Specific functions may change, or additional ones may be assigned during employment.

Benefits

• Medical Insurance
• Dental Insurance
• HSA With Company Contribution
• 401k Company Matching
• Paid Time Off
• Technology Enablement + AI Tools
• Summer Hours + Flexible Work Options
• Pet-Friendly Office
• Executive Parking (if local)